f the arms of the guard who were off duty, were usually
kept in the racks, and though there was no evidence that this was,
in any respect, the motive which induced the prisoners to make the
opening in the wall, or even that they were ever acquainted with
the fact, it naturally became at least a further cause of
suspicion and alarm, and an additional reason for precaution.

Upon these grounds captain Shortland appears to us to have been
justified in giving the order, which about this time he seems to
have given, to sound the alarm bell, the usual signal for
collecting the officers of the depot and putting the military on
the alert.

However reasonable and justifiable this was as a measure of
precaution, the effects produced thereby in the prisons, but which
could not have been intended, were most unfortunate, and deeply to
be regretted. A considerable number of the prisoners in the yards
where no disturbance existed before, and who were either already
within their respective prisons, or quietly retiring as usual
towards them, immediately upon the sound of the bell rushed back
from curiosity (as it appears) towards the gates, where, by that
time, the crowd had assembled, and many who were at the time
absent from their yards, were also from the plan of the prison,
compelled, in order to reach their own homes, to pass the same
spot, and thus that which was merely a measure of precaution, in
its operation increased the evil it was intended to prevent.
Almost at the same instant that the alarm bell rung, (but whether
before or subsequent is upon the evidence doubtful, though captain
Shortland states it positively as one of his further reasons for
causing it to ring) some one or more of the prisoners broke the
iron chain, which was the only fastening of No. 1 gate, leading
into market square by means of an iron bar; and a very
considerable number of the prisoners immediately rushed towards
that gate; and many of them began to press forwards as fast as the
opening would permit into the square.

There was no direct proof before us of previous concert or
preparation on the part of the prisoners, and no evidence of their
intention or disposition to effect their escape on this occasion,
excepting that which arose by inference from the whole of the
above detailed circumstances connect